Central conferencing routing server

Abstract

Aspects of the present disclosure involve systems, methods, computer program products, and the like, for collaboration conferencing with multiple participants over a communications network, and more specifically for a conferencing routing service for managing and routing collaboration participants.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A method for routing one or more collaboration conference access requests comprising:
 receiving a collaboration conference access request from a requester's telephonic device; 
 associating an identification number with the collaboration conference access request, the identification number associated with a customer of a telecommunications network; 
 selecting a hosting conference bridge from a plurality of conference bridges associated with the telecommunications network and configured to host a collaboration conference, the selection occurring in response to the collaboration conference access request and based on the identification number associated with the customer, wherein the identification number is further associated with a customer preference for at least one technical feature of the plurality of conference bridges, and the selecting operation is further based on the at least one technical feature, the at least one technical feature is one of wideband audio, video and audio integration, and web-based conferencing; and 
 transmitting one or more routing messages to the telecommunications network, wherein the one or more routing messages include an indication of the selected conference bridge. 
 
     
     
       2. The method of  claim 1  wherein the selecting operation comprises:
 accessing a database configured to store an identifier of active collaboration conferences on the telecommunications network and an identification of the conference bridge on which each active collaboration conference is hosted. 
 
     
     
       3. The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 requesting operational information of the plurality of conference bridges, the operational information comprising at least the available capacity for each of the plurality of conference bridges; and 
 executing a master control engine application, the master control engine application configured to analyze the operational information of the plurality of conference bridges and output a selected conference bridge from the plurality of conference bridges based at least on the available capacity of each of the plurality of conference bridges. 
 
     
     
       4. The method of  claim 3  wherein the operational information of the plurality of conference bridges further comprises at least one technical feature and the master control engine application is further configured to analyze the at least one technical feature of the plurality of conference bridges, wherein the at least technical feature is one of wideband audio, video/audio integration and web-based conferencing. 
     
     
       5. The method of  claim 4  wherein the plurality of conference bridges are geographically disparate. 
     
     
       6. The method of  claim 1  wherein the selecting operation comprises:
 accessing a priority list of the plurality of conference bridges, the priority list configured to list the plurality of conference bridges in an order of preference based on the identification number, the preference based at least on a geographic location of the plurality of conference bridges. 
 
     
     
       7. The method of  claim 1  wherein the collaboration conference access request includes a web-based conference component and transmitting one or more routing messages to the network includes routing information for the web-based conference component. 
     
     
       8. The method of  claim 1  wherein the conference bridge is a time division multiplexing (TDM) telecommunication device. 
     
     
       9. The method of  claim 1  wherein the conference bridge is a session initiation protocol (SIP) based telecommunication device.